Ideas that should work

I have a fascination with travel hacking ideas that sound great in principle but for one reason or another are unworkable in practice. For example, I earn a lot of Hilton Honors points, and am perfectly satisfied with the value I typically get redeeming them, but it's not the kind of value you can get at a property like the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island (0.96 cents per point on a sample five-night stay).

Since, in principle, there must be some people paying cash for such a stay, and since I can get it at a far lower cost, we should be able to split the difference, giving me a higher "redemption" value than I usually see, and giving a wealthy vacationer a nice discount off retail. While coupon brokers do exist, I've seen no evidence that this market is deep enough to sustain a gold rush of travel hackers selling points, once transaction fees and the broker's own cut are taken into account.

Here are a few other ideas I think should work, but face obstacles in practice.

Reselling/giving away gasoline

Periodically grocery stores will allow PIN-enabled prepaid debit cards to earn their proprietary points that can be redeemed for a discount off gasoline purchases.

I don't drive anymore, but I understand that car owners treat gas purchases as a major component of their monthly budget. In principle the fact that I, a car-free urban-dwelling millennial, am earning zillions of dollars in free or discounted gasoline, while others are buying just a few gallons at a time in order to get to their minimum wage jobs, should create an opportunity to make some money (or at least get some zakat out of the way on the cheap).

But the obstacles are rather profound. Since I don't have a car or any gasoline containers, or even know where the nearest gas station is, I certainly can't do the work of buying a bunch of cheap gasoline and then spreading it around to the downtrodden.

Likewise, I only have a few of the little bonus cards they give you at the grocery store, so I can't walk around handing them out. I think I could register it to a phone number, but then I'd have to hand out my phone number (or somebody else's) [ed: I just checked and I think I signed up with a fake name so I can't seem to register online at all].

But there's one more problem that I think poses an even more profound obstacle: on what basis would the gas be provided or split? Consider a sort of ideal condition: I find a group of struggling single mothers in the suburbs who all have to drive to their three jobs on the nightshift. I want to save them some money on gas, asking nothing in return (remember, I don't need the stuff so it costs me nothing). I photocopy 5 versions of my plastic card so they can all use them at the gas station whenever they fill up. These promotions don't come along very often, so most of the time there are no points on the card, but occasionally they save $30 on a tank of gas ($1.50 per gallon on a 20-gallon tank).

All I've done is created a situation of conflict and resentment among folks who never asked me to come along and invent this scheme in the first place! It would be a constant battle to try to seize the discounted gasoline each time a promotion came along, and whoever lost out (filling up her tank on the last day of the promo when all the points had already been redeemed) would feel terribly ill-used.

So what did I actually do? I just gave my card to a reader whose son lives in the area and drives to work. I didn't even have to give him my phone number.

Collective Rewards Accounts

This is an idea that I know has actually been implemented by some sophisticated travel hackers, but which I think still has obstacles that make it difficult for most people to pursue.

Most loyalty programs (with obvious exceptions, like Korean Air SKYPASS) don't have strict rules regarding on whose behalf points can be redeemed. That means a team of 4-5 travel hackers could each specialize in different programs, spreading devaluation and unredeemed-point risk across a larger number of people (especially if they have traveling families). Between a Delta Diamond Medallion, American Airlines Executive Platinum, and United Premier 1K, you'd have access to refundable award tickets on all three airline alliances, and no one member would feel the pain of being "locked in" to an award program with limited availability (which is more or less all of them these days).

A similar idea applies to hotel loyalty programs which require paid stays to qualify for elite status but also allow elites to transfer their benefits to others (see Frequent Miler's recent post for some additional thoughts in this vein). World of Hyatt Globalist status qualification requires 60 paid nights, which is a lot of nights for one person, but less significant for a group of 4-5 frequent travelers. By crediting every paid night to a single person's account, they would be able to secure Globalist status for the entire group (and trigger potential points windfalls during promotions).

Finally, a group approach to credit card applications would have significant potential benefits, allowing every member of the group to stay below arbitrary thresholds (staying below 5 applications each every 2 years would leave the entire group eligible for outsized signup bonuses from Chase, for example), while giving the entire group access to lucrative offers like 5% cash back cards from Wells Fargo, which according to their terms are limited to 6 months per person out of every 16.

So what's the problem? First, each individual member of the group would have responsibilities and limitations. It may be that when you joined such a group you preferred flying United and didn't have a problem being the designated Premier 1K. But a change in work or flight schedules might suddenly make flying United unacceptably inconvenient. Your partners are meanwhile diligently pursuing Diamond Medallion and Executive Platinum. What do you do?

Second, the group would need a fairly sophisticated method of keeping track of each member's contributions and withdrawals from the pool in order to maintain harmony. It's true that if well-implemented there should be far more total points in the pool than would ever be redeemed, but if two members both want to fly their extended families on Lufthansa First the same weekend, you can imagine the pool of Star Alliance miles getting pretty depleted.

These are surmountable problems, and indeed I know of groups that pursue collective strategies like this. But despite the obvious advantages I don't think such a system is simple enough to implement for it to be practical for most travel hackers.

Instead, the far more accessible solution is one-time transactions mediated by cash or other instruments. I think that's a reasonable compromise, but nevertheless reduces the potential for outsized value a truly collective strategy would provide.

Hey look the Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard raised their signup bonus

I saw at Miles to Memories yesterday morning that the Bank of America Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard had raised its signup bonus from 20,000 to 30,000 Guest Rewards points after spending $1,000 within 3 months.

While I don't chase signup bonuses, I'm not a lunatic: if you want to get a card, you're better off getting it when the signup bonus is higher rather than when the signup bonus is lower!

And the Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard is a pretty good card, if you travel on Amtrak regularly and pay for your own tickets.

Amtrak Guest Rewards points are pretty valuable

Amtrak Guest Rewards points are now redeemable for between 1.71 cents each (on certain Acela fares) and 2.9 cents each (on certain close-in Value fares), meaning a 30,000-point signup bonus is worth between $513 and $870, if you pay for your own Amtrak tickets out of pocket.

Note that this is not true if all of your Amtrak travel is reimbursed by an employer! If that's the case you should be putting your Amtrak purchases on the most lucrative card in your wallet for unbonused spend or travel purchases.

But if you just like taking trains (trains are great) then you can save a lot of money on train travel with this signup bonus.

Additionally, under certain circumstances it's possible to make large transfers of Amtrak Guest Rewards points to Choice Privileges points. Choice has a fairly confusing loyalty program but if you are able to take advantage of their properties you can get a lot of value from relatively few points.

Amtrak Guest Rewards points aren't that easy to earn

Since Chase Ultimate Rewards removed Amtrak Guest Rewards as a transfer partner, the only ways I know of to earn Amtrak Guest Rewards points are:

• Paid travel on Amtrak. If you commute on Amtrak, or if you have your Amtrak travel reimbursed, this is the most seamless way to earn Guest Rewards points.
• Shopping through the Amtrak Guest Rewards portal. If you're a reseller who's able to direct your online purchases through the portal of your choosing, you can use Amtrak's and not muck around with credit cards or manufactured spend.
• Transfers from Starwood Preferred Guest and Diners Club. If you have a Starwood Preferred Guest American Express or Diners Club credit card (either from the long long ago or during the brief period when cards were available to new applicants) then you can already earn one Amtrak Guest Rewards point per dollar spent at unbonused merchants.
• The Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard. Of course, some people don't have access to American Express credit cards for one reason or another, and almost nobody has access to Diners Club credit cards. That means if you are interested in earning Amtrak Guest Rewards points, don't have paid travel on Amtrak, don't do a lot of online shopping, and don't have a Starwood Preferred Guest or Diners Club credit card, well, you're going to need an Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard.

A few other benefits

The Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard isn't exclusively for folks who redeem points for Amtrak travel: the annual roundtrip companion ticket, even with its numerous restrictions, is the kind of thing that folks who frequently buy paid Amtrak tickets can take advantage of so that a partner or family member can come along on business trips. That's the kind of thing business folks seem to enjoy.

There's also an annual lounge pass. Amtrak lounges are pretty bad, so I'd ordinarily say to just show up right before your train leaves, but given Amtrak delays maybe a lounge pass is more valuable than I'm giving it credit for.

Conclusion

I won't personally be applying for the current increased signup bonus because I have about 9 credit cards that are higher priorities for my applications right now. But if you don't have anything better on deck, I think the Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard is a pretty good card with a better-than-usual signup bonus.

BankAmericard Travel Rewards is probably the best single credit card

I've written before about the BankAmericard Travel Rewards card, which I think is probably the best card for unbonused spend, assuming you can put an average of $100,000 into an eligible account for an average of 3 months. Other good candidates are the Discover it Miles card which doubles 1.5% cash back after 12 months (for a total of 3% cash back, if you don't mind the wait) or the USAA Limitless Cashback Rewards card which earns 2.5% cash back with far fewer hoops to jump through (if you're eligible for the card).

While working on a different project, I realized the BankAmericard Travel Rewards card has a different distinction: I think it might be the single best credit card. I mean, if for some reason you only carry one credit card, I think it might be the best one to carry.

To be clear, most travel hackers don't carry only one credit card, and someone who already carries a wide variety of cards for a variety of purposes shouldn't necessarily apply (unless they're able to trigger the higher earnings described in the link above).

What's so great about the BankAmericard Travel Rewards card?

Here's my case for the Travel Rewards card being the best credit card:

• No annual fee. $0 is the lowest an annual fee can be.
• No foreign transaction fee. If you travel outside the United States, a card that charges no foreign transaction fees is strictly superior to a card that charges foreign transaction fees.
• Chip-and-PIN enabled. I did not realize until recently that most (all?) BankAmericard credit cards with chips are PIN-enabled, making it possible to use them at unmanned kiosks outside the United States. You can set the PIN on your BankAmericard credit cards by logging into your account, selecting "Information & Services," and then "Manage card settings."
• 1.5% cash back rewards (unless you're able to trigger higher earning with Bank of America and affiliate account balances). This is lower than many other credit cards, but not that much lower, which will become important.

What's wrong with the rest?

BankAmericard Travel Rewards has a lot of competition for best single credit card. What's wrong with them?

• Chase Freedom Unlimited. No annual fee, 1.5% cash back, but with a 3% foreign transaction fee and not chip-and-PIN enabled.
• Citi Double Cash. No annual fee, 2% cash back, but with 3% foreign transaction fee and not chip-and-PIN enabled.
• Capital One Venture Rewards. $59 annual fee and 2% cash back, no foreign transaction fee and not chip-and-PIN enabled.
• Fidelity Rewards Visa. No annual fee, 2% cash back, and 1% foreign transaction fee. Not chip-and-PIN enabled.
• Barclaycard Arrival Plus. $89 annual fee, 2.105% cash back, no foreign transaction fee. Chip-and-PIN enabled.

The 1.5% cash back earning rate on the BankAmericard Travel Rewards card is lower than the maximum cash back available on unbonused purchases, but in each case you can see you're making an explicit tradeoff: you can pay an annual fee, a foreign transaction fee, or give up chip-and-PIN capabilities.

Conclusion

At this point I assume my readers are boiling over with outrage about not considering this, that, or the other thing in the world of travel and travel hacking.

Which brings me all the way back to my point. If you know anything about travel hacking this recommendation is absurd; there are so many better cards to apply for first, so many bonus categories to maximize, so many spending requirement thresholds to trigger! But most people don't know anything about travel hacking, and they need recommendations too.

To those people this is my recommendation: sign up for a BankAmericard Travel Rewards card and never think about it again.

For the sake of full disclosure, I personally don't carry this card since I don't have $100,000 in assets I can house with Bank of America, but am planning to product change my Better Balance Rewards card to Travel Rewards as soon as I hit that threshold.

Reported Flexperks changes and two kinds of breakage

As I first saw reported at Doctor of Credit, people are saying that Flexpoints earned with the US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards credit cards will be redeemable for 1.5 cents each beginning on January 1, 2018. They're currently worth as much as 2 cents each for paid airline tickets at the top of their redemption bands, and as little as 1.33 cents at the bottom of a redemption band.

I don't have any insight into whether these reports are true, not having seen any communications from US Bank about any upcoming changes. However, since I seem to have a reputation as the biggest booster of Flexpoints in the travel hacking community, I certainly have been thinking about it.

People are anxious to make definitive declarations about whether the change would be an improvement or a devaluation. That judgment comes down to the intersection of two kinds of breakage.

Breakage as unredeemed value

This is the form of breakage that most immediately leaps to mind when you hear about a change like this. If you are able to consistently redeem your Flexpoints for flights at or close to the top of US Bank's redemption bands, then the value you would receive on redemptions after January first will drop by 25%. The further your actual redemptions are from that ideal redemption, the less the effect the change in redemption value will affect you: you can easily imagine someone who typically books $300 flights or $450 flights with Flexpoints and won't suffer at all from reducing their "maximum" value from 2 cents to 1.5 cents: they'll redeem the same number of points for their typical flight.

More than that, the current system of redemption bands creates an anxiety over unredeemed value. The difference between the $600 maximum value of 30,000 Flexpoints and the actual value you receive creates a disincentive to redeem points at all. Earning points and not redeeming them because of anxiety over getting a "good" redemption value means you might find yourself redeeming other potentially more valuable miles, or even cash, in order to "save" your Flexpoints for a more valuable redemption. You can be disciplined and always "redeem points and miles first," as I do, but that doesn't eliminate the fear of missing out that can be genuinely frustrating.

In other words, a fixed value for redemptions up and down the price scale has the advantage of consistency, even if it removes the ability to swing for the redemption fences.

Breakage as unredeemed points

A different kind of breakage is stranded or unredeemed points. If you're a Flexperks aficionado you may be familiar with ending a statement cycle with 19,000, 39,000, or 99,000 Flexpoints. In the first case your points are worth $190 in cash, in the second case they're worth up to $400 in flights plus $190 in cash, and in the last case they're worth up to $1,600 in flights and $190 in cash. In other words, "odd lot" Flexpoint balances are worth 1 cent each, 1.51 cents each, or 1.81 cents each, not the 2 cents each that you are hoping for.

The more difficult it is to redeem points (e.g. requiring a minimum of 20,000 points), the more points are likely to be stranded in your account at any one time. Stranded and unredeemable points balances are worth nothing (or one cent each, which is close enough). They're not even worth the 1.5 cents each posited under the new redemption regime!

Conclusion

The important thing to understand is not that the changes being reported are "good" or "bad."

In many ways they tug in different directions: the breakage of unredeemed value will be eliminated, but the amount of value locked in will be lower than the value many, if not most, Flexperks cardholders are currently receiving.

On the other hand, if the changes also inaugurate an elimination of minimum redemption amounts, the number of Flexpoints stranded will be reduced by creating more flexibility in award construction, with one-way flights and flights in different classes of service such that you're able to spend down as much of your Flexpoints balance as possible with each redemption. Fewer stranded Flexpoints is an unalloyed good, just as lower maximum redemption value is, for most customers in most circumstances, a devaluation.

That leaves one question which only the individual cardholder can answer: will you get more value from your formerly-stranded, newly-redeemable rump Flexpoint balances, or less value from knocking down the maximum value of points you planned to redeem for flights at the top of the current redemption bands?

Neither I nor any other blogger, thought leader, or guru can answer that question for you.

Let's talk about the Hyatt signup bonus change

As I first saw on Wednesday afternoon via Charles Barkowski's Running With Miles, but which you can now read about everywhere fine affiliate links are sold, starting June 29, 2017, the Chase Hyatt credit card will apparently come with a signup bonus not of 2 free nights at any Hyatt in the world, but rather 40,000 World of Hyatt bonus points.

This is being treated in most corners of the blogosphere as a simple question of whether 40,000 World of Hyatt points are worth "more" or "less" than 2 free nights, which leads to the simple answer that the new signup bonus is worth "less" if you were planning to redeem your 2 free nights at properties that cost more than 20,000 points per nights (category 6 and 7 World of Hyatt properties), and they're worth "more" if you were planning to redeem your 2 free nights at properties that cost 20,000 or fewer points per night (since you would have points left over).

That's fine, as far as it goes. What this changeover does give me the occasion to mention is my general preference for points over free night certificates. I already have a Hyatt credit card, but for people considering whether to apply before or after the changeover, here's my logic.

There are three possible situations in which you might redeem Hyatt free night certificates, good at any Hyatt in the world:

• A stay in a city with only a category 6 or 7 property. If you're flying into Milan for two nights, you can redeem your two free night certificates for two nights at the Park Hyatt Milan, which retail for hilariously large sums, and are worth $300 per night in transferred Ultimate Rewards points. Here, your two free night certificates are worth $600, the value of the Ultimate Rewards points you don't have to transfer to World of Hyatt. This is a straightforward savings of $200 compared to the 40,000 World of Hyatt points available under the new offer. The same logic applies to Hyatt's luxury resort in the Maldives. If you're going anyway, you should pay less, rather than more, for your stay.
• A stay in a city with properties in categories 6, 7 and below. Take a destination like Paris, home of the notorious Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome, a category 7 property. Paris is also the home of, a few blocks away, the Hôtel du Louvre-Paris, a category 5 property. If you are staying for exactly two nights, then you are perfectly justified in preferring two nights at the category 7 property over the same two nights at a category 5 property. But what happens on the third night? The Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome costs an additional 30,000 World of Hyatt points, while the Hôtel du Louvre costs just 20,000 additional points. On longer stays, choosing to redeem your free night certificates for "maximum value" costs an additional 10,000 points per night, unless you're interested in moving between hotels during your stay.
• A stay in a city with properties only in categories 1-4. Here the advantage of the 40,000-point signup offer is obvious: in categories 1-4, 40,000 points go further than 2 free night certificates do. Seattle is an example of a city with a slew of downtown Hyatt properties, all of which cost less than 20,000 points per night. If that's where your next trip is planned, you'll be better off with the new signup bonus rather than sitting on free night certificates waiting for the "perfect" high-value redemption.

I don't have anything against luxury travel, if that's what you're interested in, and the current two-free-night offer is worth up to 20,000 more World of Hyatt points than the upcoming 40,000-point offer for travel to the most expensive Hyatt properties.

But it's also worth up to 30,000 points less, if you tend to redeem your Hyatt points at category 1 properties that cost just 5,000 points per night.

If you trade 8 nights at a category 1 property for 8 nights at a category 7 property (with two nights free), you'll find yourself spending 180,000 World of Hyatt points or tens of thousands of dollars in cash.

Call that an extreme example if you like, but I've always found spending money is damned strange way to save money.

Hotel cashback portal participation (it's complicated)

I've recently had occasion to take a look at a few options for booking paid hotel reservations, and have come across a peculiar situation on several cashback portals. Today I want to share a few observations and offer some suggestions.

Booking portals penalize rewards-earning stays

I came across this issue because the Citi Dividend card (no longer available to new applicants) is offering 5% cashback (up to $300 cashback per calendar year) on airline reservations and Hilton stays during the third quarter of 2017. While I personally reached my cashback maximum in the second quarter (at drug stores) I thought some readers who don't manufacture spend might still be able to earn cashback during the third quarter on paid Hilton stays. After all, even if you have a Hilton Surpass card earning 12 points per dollar spent at Hilton properties, you'd have to consistently value Hilton points above 0.42 cents each to prefer the Hilton points.

With that in mind, I decided to take a look at some booking portals you could use to make your Hilton reservations, and discovered that the two portals offering the highest payouts included similar restrictions. In the case of BeFrugal, the payout is:

• 7% Cash Back on Non-HHonors Rate Completed Stay
• 6% Cash Back on HHonors Blue Rate Completed Stay
• 2% Cash Back on HHonors Silver Rate Completed Stay
• 1% Cash Back on HHonors Gold Or Diamond Rate Completed Stay

And in the cash of TopCashback:

• 7% Confirmed Booking for Non HHonors Members and Blue Tier HHonors Members
• 2% Confirmed Booking for Silver Tier HHonors Members
• 1% Confirmed Booking for Gold and Diamond Tier HHonors Members

In other words, Hilton doesn't want to pay out big cashback rebates to customers to whom it's also paying out big Hilton Honors points rebates.

The reason this is necessary is because once you've clicked through the cashback portal, you land directly on the hotel's website, which means your stay is eligible for hotel rewards as well.

Knowing that some online travel agencies allow you to pay for hotel stays in person on arrival, my first thought was to work around this problem by using an online travel agency with its own rewards program. But the same problem pops up there!

BeFrugal offers to pay out on Hotels.com bookings at the following rates:

• 9% Cash Back on Completed Hotel Stay - Not A Hotels.com Rewards Rate Customer
• 3% Cash Back on Completed Hotel Stay - Hotels.com Rewards Rate Customer

In other words, you can earn 9% cash back without earning Hotels.com Rewards nights, or 3% cash back if you choose to earn Hotels.com Rewards nights.

TopCashback offers:

• 9% Completed Stay without earning Hotels.com Rewards
• 5% Completed Stay with earning Hotels.com Rewards

Since Hotels.com Rewards nights are worth "about" a 10% rebate, you're better off earning both cashback and Hotels.com rewards nights, if and only if you're sure you'll reach 10 Hotels.com Rewards nights and thus be eligible for a redemption.

Possible workarounds

In the case of online travel agencies, you can stack rewards by choosing the highest cashback portal payout that still earns the OTA's own rewards currency, choosing a rate that's paid in-person, and then paying with a credit card that offers the highest earning rate, like the Citi Dividend in the example I mentioned above. In the case of Hotels.com this might add up to a total rebate of something like 20%: 5% through TopCashback, 10% through Hotels.com, and 5% through the Citi Dividend.

If you want to take advantage of your status with a hotel chain, for example receiving room upgrades or breakfast, as well as earning points or elite-qualifying nights, you'll want to book through the cashback portal that offers the highest payouts on elite-qualifying stays. For example, the Upromise portal offers 5% cashback on Hilton stays and doesn't include restrictions on participation in Hilton Honors.

Finally, if you want to earn the highest payouts, don't need elite status benefits, and are willing to take a chance, you could try booking a paid stay through the highest-paying portal (BeFrugal or TopCashback in the case of Hilton) without logging into your hotel rewards account, and after your stay has completed and your cashback has posted request retroactive points from the hotel chain. Of course that means being unable to take advantage of rates exclusively available to Hilton Honors members.

What's the 5th-best American Express card?

Last Friday I posted a quick analysis of the American Express Blue Business Plus card, which earns 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent, on up to $50,000 in purchases per calendar year.

It got a lot more comments than posts which I would have considered more controversial! There were a few exchanges in the comments that I want to draw out and consider individually.

Opportunity for a negative interest rate loan

I've written before about negative interest rate loans and their value to a travel hacker, and as reader Amol pointed out in the comments, the Blue Business Plus offers such an opportunity: with a 0% APR on purchases for the first 12 months, you should be able to max out your credit limit (up to $50,000) and make only minimum payments for a year. In the last month, you can pay off the card and, since the $50,000 limit is based on the calendar year you'll still be able to spend another $50,000 for a second 100,000 Membership Rewards points in your second calendar year of cardmembership.

Earning 100,000 Membership Rewards points upfront as negative interest on a 12-month loan is a good deal, especially if you have a particularly lucrative redemption opportunity in mind.

Business credit card

As a business credit card, the Blue Business Plus has a few advantages:

• participation in American Express's OPEN savings program;
• high balances not reported on personal credit report (helpful if you max out your card as described above);
• business cards shouldn't count against Chase's approval limit for certain credit cards.

What's the 5th-best American Express credit card?

Several readers commented that they found the $50,000 limit on calendar year purchases that earn 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar too low to make the card worth considering.

There's one sense in which this is strictly true: if you have a card that has a higher earning rate, on an unlimited amount of spend, then you should use that card instead of a Blue Business Plus card. For example, if you have a BankAmericard Travel Rewards card and $100,000 of eligible deposits, and you value Membership Rewards points at less than 1.31 cents each, then you should not put any spend on a card that earns 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent, since you'll get more value earning 2.625% cash back with your Travel Rewards card.

On the other hand, most travel hackers I know accumulate multiple rewards currencies in multiple different ways: paid travel, manufactured spend, reselling, and signup bonuses, to mention a few.

If that's the case, then you don't need to ask if the Blue Business Plus card is the best credit card, or even the best American Express credit card: you only need to ask if it's the 5th-best American Express credit card, since you can have 5 total American Express credit cards.

If you could only have one credit card total across every issuing bank, you'd insist on carrying the single best credit card, which for me would probably be the Chase Ink Plus (no longer available to new applicants, unfortunately). If you could only card one credit card from each bank, you'd need to carefully select the American Express card that best suited your needs: if you wanted to trigger a Delta Medallion Qualification Dollar waiver, it would have to be a Delta American Express card. If you wanted to earn points that could be redeemed for hotel rooms and flights, or transferred to partner airline programs, you'd likely choose a Starwood Preferred Guest card.

But in the real world, you can create a portfolio of credit cards that serves a range of functions: you can carry a Delta SkyMiles card for the Medallion Qualification Dollar waiver, a Starwood Preferred Guest card for hotel stays and transfers to programs like Alaska Mileage Plus and Lufthansa Miles and More, and a Membership Rewards-earning card for transfers to Singapore KrisFlyer, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, or Air Canada Aeroplan.

Conclusion

I don't personally have any intention of signing up for a Blue Business Plus card, since I don't see Membership Rewards as a currency that my readers have reported being able to get a lot of value out of, and I don't see any upcoming opportunities to get outsized value from them in the immediate future. Realistically, I'd probably end up transferring them to Delta and redeeming them for 1 or 2 cents each, which doesn't entice me to go out of my way to earn them.

However, if you consistently get 2 or 3 cents per point in value from Membership Rewards points, then I don't think the $50,000 cap on purchases should pose a serious obstacle, unless it pushes the card below 5th place in your personal ranking of American Express credit cards.

Excited about Amex Blue Business Plus? Let's talk about it

You may have heard that American Express has launched a new business credit card that earns 2 flexible Membership Rewards points per dollar spent everywhere, on up to $50,000 in calendar year spend.

You may also have heard that the 20,000 Membership Rewards-point signup bonus after spending $3,000 on the card is only available through affiliate links, but that's false. I've helpfully stripped the affiliate information off the signup link, so anyone can sign up here without triggering a payout to an affiliate blogger.

Easy to earn is good

The easier points are to earn on unbonused categories of spend, the better. That's true whether we're talking about Ultimate Rewards points, Membership Rewards points, hotel or airline loyalty currencies, or cash back.

The fact that it's now possible to earn 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar on unbonused spend, instead of the 1.5 Membership Rewards points that could be earned on unbonused spend with the Amex Everyday Preferred (after 30 transactions in a given billing cycle), is an unalloyed good.

Hard to redeem is bad

The problem is, making Membership Rewards points easy to earn doesn't make them easy to redeem, and thus can't increase the value of a given Membership Rewards point. If you're the kind of person who regularly gets great value from Membership Rewards points, then earning them at an accelerated rate will get you more of the redemptions you already find valuable. If you're the kind of person who finds Membership Rewards points singularly difficult to redeem, then earning somewhat more of them on your unbonused spend is unlikely to offer much marginal value.

Amex Blue Business Plus Membership Rewards use cases

I'm not here simply to snipe, however. I want to spell out what really are some obvious use cases for the Amex Blue Business Plus. These use cases are obvious because they take into account the decisions you've already made about the value of various rewards currencies.

• If you are willing to earn 1.4 Delta SkyMiles per dollar spent on an American Express Delta Platinum card, or 1.5 SkyMiles per dollar spent on an American Express Delta Reserve card, you should be willing to earn 2 SkyMiles per dollar spent on an Amex Blue Business Plus card.
• If you're willing to earn 1.5 British Airways Avios per dollar spent on a Chase Freedom Unlimited card, you should be willing to earn 1.6 Avios per dollar spent on an Amex Blue Business Plus card.
• If you're willing to earn 1.5 Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles or Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles per dollar spent on a Chase Freedom Unlimited card, you should be willing to earn 2 KrisFlyer or Flying Blue miles per dollar spent on an Amex Blue Business Plus card.

Conclusion

If you are already earning these currencies or transferring your flexible points to these currencies, then being able to earn them with less unbonused spend than you're already doing is a clear win. On the other hand, if spending $50,000 per cardmember year on the Amex Blue Business Plus card simply generates 100,000 Membership Rewards points you have no intention to spend, you'll have found yourself to be the butt of yet another credit card marketing joke.

Hyatt takes suite upgrade awards seriously. Be sure to use them!

On my recent trip to Lexington, Kentucky, I stayed at my favorite downtown hotel, the Hyatt Regency Lexington. It's got a great central location and a decent restaurant downstairs where Hyatt Globalists can take their free breakfast, either from the buffet or off the menu.

Since award stays are now eligible for suite upgrade awards, I called Hyatt as soon as mine posted on March 1 to upgrade my room to a "Junior Suite." The upgrade was confirmed and the suite upgrade award was deducted from my account.

Now, I wasn't traveling with my extended family — I wasn't traveling with my family at all! But I was pretty excited about finally being able to stay in a suite at this property which I've stayed at umpteen times before, so I was naturally disappointed when I checked into my room and discovered it was...a standard room.

Round 1: Hyatt Twitter customer service

My friend and I were anxious to go out that evening so I sent a direct message to Hyatt's Twitter account explaining the situation. Their first reply was:

"I'm very sorry to hear that you did not get the suite that we confirmed with the front desk prior to your arrival. I attempted to call the front desk to assist with the situation, and was told that there is not a manager on duty to assist with the situation, and was unable to garner assistance from the front desk associate. I am emailing the hotel's executive management team to have them assist with the situation directly, and they should reach out to you tomorrow to assist with the situation."

I asked if they could refund the suite upgrade award, and they replied:

"At this time, we are unable to return the suite upgrade to your account, as we sincerely hope the hotel will be able to rectify the situation, and get you into your suite as soon as possible. If, in the course of correcting the situation, the hotel feels that it is best to return the award to your account, they will contact us directly, and we will return the award to your account."

Round 2: Hotel customer service

The next day at brunch I received a call from the Hyatt Regency's general manager. He apologized profusely, explaining that I hadn't received a suite because my reservation "had a lot of touches" from Hyatt central booking. He offered me two options:

1. he could move me to a suite for the remaining 3 nights of my reservation;
2. or he could refund me the entire points cost of my reservation (32,000 points) and give me a $50 credit in the hotel's restaurant.

After about 2 seconds of deliberation I chose the second option. For your future reference, I only used about $46 of the $50 credit and the remaining $4 was refunded to the credit card I had provided on check-in.

Round 3: Hotel follow-up

After checking out, I watchfully waited to see if the promised 32,000-point refund would post automatically. Once I saw it still hadn't after a few days, I called the hotel, and the evening manager transferred me to the general manager's voicemail. I briefly summarized the situation and asked him to let me know the status of the refund. The next day he e-mailed me that he had requested the refund of the points and the suite upgrade. A few days later, all 32,000 points had posted back into my Hyatt account.

Round 4: Hyatt follow-up

The points posted back to my account, but my account still showed 1 of my suite upgrade awards as having been redeemed and no longer available. I placed another call to Hyatt and explained the situation, and was told they would look into it and get back to me. The next day I received the strangest e-mail:

"Thank you for your message regarding your stay at Hyatt Regency Lexington.

I am sorry to hear that your suite upgrade award was redeemed by the hotel although you did not stay in a suite. I contacted the executive management team at Hyatt Regency Lexington on your behalf. By sharing your experience, you have a direct positive impact on future stays, which allows us to maintain the level of service that Hyatt is known for.

In an effort to make things right, I would like to upgrade your room accommodations for your next stay at a full service Hyatt Hotel to a suite based on availability. We ask that you make your reservations for a standard room and then call Hyatt Guest Relations at (800) 323-7249/(402) 592 6465. Provide us the reservation confirmation number, refer to case number CASxxxxxxx, and we will work with the hotel to provide an upgraded room for the duration of your stay. This offer is valid for one year and is based on availability."

In other words, instead of simply changing the "available" counter in the suite upgrade award database from "3" to "4," they decided the best method would be create and annotate a case number which I have to hope a future customer service representative will be able to locate and handle correctly.

Strange way to run a railroad.

Conclusion

The reason I have laid out this situation in such detail is not to complain about Hyatt or the Hyatt Regency Lexington. While their methods certainly seem odd, I have no complaints about either: I got a free four-night stay at a downtown Lexington property. I hope every hotel I stay at treats me so "poorly!"

The reason this story may be relevant to you is that it appears that when Hyatt confirms a suite upgrade award, they mean it, and they expect properties to do absolutely everything in their power to honor the upgrade or make it right with the customer, all the way up to refunding the entire cost of the stay during an extremely busy weekend (it was a race weekend in Lexington).

So use your suite upgrade awards! They'll either be honored and you'll get a nice suite upgrade, or they won't and you'll walk away with a free stay or a points windfall.

Use Korean Air SKYPASS to piece together low-level Delta award availability

In April I wrote a post trying to figure out what kind of award space Delta makes available to their partners, since the space they make to their own members is priced so inconsistently, not to say erratically. In the comments to that post, Frequent Miler asked:

"Sometimes Delta has saver award space for married segments but not for the individual segments. I've seen this frequently with gso-dtw-buf. I'm curious whether Skypass sees the individual segments. I'll try it, but curious if you came across this already?"

A year ago I wrote about being able to piece together low-level Alaska redemptions on Delta by entering segments individually in a multi-city search, so I knew that it used to be possible, at least with that one partner. The question is whether it's still possible in general and still possible with Korean Air in particular.

The good news is, it is.

Use SKYPASS multi-city search to piece together low-level Delta legs

On October 6, the best connection between Greensboro and Buffalo costs 20,000 SkyMiles:

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The first leg, between Greensboro and Detroit, is just 12,5000 SkyMiles:

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As is the second leg, between Detroit and Buffalo:

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Using Korean Air SKYPASS's multi-city search function, I am able to input the first leg, second leg, and then a return flight (SkyPass doesn't offer one-way partner redemptions), and select each leg individually. Such an itinerary prices out correctly at 25,000 SKYPASS miles:

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As was the case in my post last May about using Alaska's multi-city search tool, you do have to use the Korean Air multi-city search tool — a simple roundtrip search did not return the desired routing.

Amazingly, you can do this in both directions

If the route you're flying is one targeted by Delta for price gouging, you'll naturally want to know if you can piece together segments in both directions in order to secure low-level space and your preferred routing on the entire trip.

The answer is, yes, you can. Here is a Korean Air SKYPASS routing I constructed using the multi-search function to specify each flight I wanted:

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As hoped, the entire itinerary priced out at 25,000 SKYPASS miles:

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Korean Air's award routing rules seem to be written in machine-translated Korean, so I don't have a firm grasp of whether a stopover is allowed in each direction and the manually selected segments use up that stopover, or whether the connections are so short that they don't count as stopovers, meaning you could also add one or two stopovers. This would be extremely valuable if you lived in Detroit or another Delta hub, since it would mean you could get up to 4 unrelated one-way flights to and from your home airport for the price of one roundtrip.

Again, I just don't know if that's the case or not, but if you have experience piecing together such itineraries, be sure to let me and other readers know in the comments!